Can I ask how you received donations from Oriental Trading?

We will be doing our 5th annual Breakfast with Santa this year, at first we did muffins doughnuts and juice but now we do Pancakes and sausage, we still get a few doughuts also. We do a craft and a Volunteer parent that comes and does pictures with Santa and he gives some of his profitts back to us. Alot of fun we have the dad cook also, makes them fill involved as well.

Forgot to mention, we do take pictures and have them developed at Sam's. They are always to help with a $25 donation which helps with the cost of pictures. We send the pictures home with a letter from Santa.

My kid's preschool do this every year. I am able to get donuts & bagels donated from several restaurants. I recieved a gift card from Publix & Winn Dixie, helping with fruit and little Debbie goodies. A local dairy donated all the milk, juice & water. I had several Moms donate plates & napkins. We got a donation from Oriental trading company to help with goodie bags and items to put in the goodie bags. Our local Barnes & Noble donated two boxes of goodies for our goodie bags too. We had giveaways and crafts & games. We had Santa & Mrs. Claus, they are Mother & Son. The kids would talk to Mrs. Claus while they waited to see Santa. It has a huge success every year. Good luck!

We've moved to a "Holiday Around the World" theme with Santa still being a key attraction. Ours is a breakeven family event, not a fundraiser. Typically, we spend $500-$600, which is recovered.

I listed more details about the activities in a recent posting at:
www.ptotoday.com/cgi-ptotoday/ultimatebb...opic&f=9&t=000329&p=

You might also want to do a search in this area of the Forum as the topic comes up periodically.

As far as costs, we've found the Polaroid film ends up costing a bit over $1 per picture. If you use the cardboard frames (portfolios) that adds as well, and there are always a few pictures that don't work out. We've charged $1.50 in the past, although I think this year's group went up to $2. We typically sell about 200 pictures.

We do a variety of crafts and have Christmas karoke going on. That's all free to the attendees. Craft expenses for us vary, but we try to keep it minimal. A lot of years we've asked for donations for craft supplies from parents. But if you do have buy supplies and want to break even, then your picture and food fees have to help cover these expenses.

Refreshments consist of a beverage (juice/hot chocolate/coffee) and a donut. I think we charge $1 for that.

We have a cash/ticket station at the door and only accept tickets inside. I think one year we sold all tickets for 50 cents, and then people could spend them either on pictures or food. That makes it a bit harder to plan for pictures because anyone with unused tickets makes a dash for pictures as you are closing.

We don't really have another use for that type of picture, so we don't want to get stuck with a lot of film. Thus it's important to estimate properly. It's worked better the years we used different colored tickets for pictures versus food. Then we knew to stop selling picture tickets once 200 were gone. (We buy a bit of extra film.)

Also, on pictures we only allow a "retake" if the picture is really blurry or there's some problem. It's just too expensive to redo if the parent doesn't like the expression or the eyes are closed. (Note,the parents can also take pictures with their own camera.)

The only other thing is that our Principal and Vice Principal have the discretion to discreetly distribute some free tickets to families in need. We keep track of how many tickets so our cash and
"tickets sold" balance, but we pretty much leave this up to them. Also, some of the parents buy more tickets than they redeem. It all evens out.

It's a fun event and we never lack for volunteers. Good luck with yours.

[ 11-23-2002: Message edited by: JHB ]</p>

JHB, Wow what a refreshing change, to actually to a PTO event that is not centered in draining the pocketbooks of all that attend. Can you tell I'm fund-raised out for this year? Anyway, thanks for the idea, I'm going to present it to our Board (I'm not on this year) and see if they will bite. It has been a battle of the fundraisers this year and this would be a welcome sight to many. We would have to do it for Easter, but I love the pancake idea, pictures w/Bunny and some sort of craft or Easter Egg hunt sponsored by the PTO.....FOR A BREAK EVEN EVENT. Just a way of saying thanks! :eek: